10 Wrestlers Who Probably Had A Death Wish

Professional wrestling is a dangerous career to take up, an opening gambit that goes without saying to say the least.

Those who know nothing about the industry will frequently refer to it as 'fake', a hokey world of 'pretend fighting', but if you ask those nay-sayers to fall flat on their back on the floor 10 times or so over a five minute period for 250+ days a year, the chances are they will reject your request outright.

As the classic WWF warning video stated, the risks these men and women take to entertain us are real, very real. Injuries aren't common as much as they are constant, and pro wrestling is a world where a slight muscle tear could most likely simultaneously be described as a 'niggle'.

Simply put, if you want to be a wrestler you better prepare for a whole lot of discomfort.

This is true regardless of where on the card you are, but a number of wrestlers over time have gone out of their way to put their body through hell. I'm not talking about diving into barbed wire or getting hit with a weed whacker here; I'm talking taking a corner bump and throwing oneself fully into it.

The bumps certain individuals have taken suggests they have little concern for their wellbeing and continued existence on this planet.

Dave Meltzer said that AJ Styles wrestled the Extreme Rules main event as if he had a 'death wish'. He's not alone, in that regard...

In a world of giants such as professional wrestling, those smaller wrestlers often get painted with that 'wrestling with something to prove' brush.

If this is the case, not many individuals have had as much to prove as Spike Dudley. Billed as standing just 5'7" and weighing 145lbs, the chances are Spike Dudley was always going to be up against individuals bigger than him.

He also got his first break in ECW, the land of ridiculous bumps. As such, when Spike arrived in the then-World Wrestling Federation in 2001, he arrived with plenty to prove. Luckily (or unluckily) for Spike, he was more than willing to prove it. He would often get paired up against the giants of the company, and quickly became renowned for taking dangerous bumps against men such as Undertaker and Big Show.

The most famous bump Spike took came after 'Taker had demolished him in a Hardcore challenge match. A Last Ride through a trash can had ended the match, but the exclamation mark on Spike's night came in the shape of a chokeslam from the ring to the floor.

Spike has since gone on record stating this was the most painful bump he ever took in his career.